I do
not mean to say that my young friend considers me grotesque or
dishonest, but his idea of humour is to make a pretence of thinking so.
He would be distressed if he thought that he had given me pain; his
intention is to diffuse a genial good-humour into the scene; and if he
were bantered in the same way, he would take it as an evidence of
friendly feeling.
The truth is that it is really schoolboy humour belatedly prolonged.
Vituperation is the schoolboy's idea of friendly banter. The schoolboy
does not so much consider the feelings of his victim as his companions'
need for amusement. But I am sure that the tendency nowadays is,
somehow or other, to prolong the hobbledehoy days. There is so much
more organisation of everything at schools that young men remain boys
longer than they used to do. Partly, too, in the case of this young
man, it arises from his never having had a change of atmosphere. He
remained a jolly schoolboy till the end of his University days, and
then he went back to the society of schoolboys. He is simply
undeveloped; and the mistake he makes is to consider himself a man of
the world.
But partly, too, it arises from national characteristics, the
preference for bluntness and frankness and outspokenness; the tendency
to believe that a display of courtesy and emotion and consideration is
essentially insincere. One does not at all want to get rid of frankness
and outspokenness.
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